AuthorTopic: HELP!!! DEAD PRINTER CONNECTION!!! (Read 8742 times)

I'm using Vectorlinux-5.8-SOHO-FINAL release on a Dell Optiplex 260 with 1 GB of RAM.

My printer is an H-P Laserjet 4. It worked just fine under Windows and under other linux distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Suse)

Under Vector, the printer never worked properly all the time. Sometimes it would work normally. Other times I'd get half a page of text and/or image and then blank space with a line or two of givverish at the bottom of the page.

Today, after it ruined 20 pages of printouts, I decided to try and fix it.

Bottom line - It now doesn't work AT ALL.

Attempts to send a test page to the printer produce the same result - no printout, and "error" in the job-status window of the control center window for printers.

I tried removing and reinstalling the driver. No dice.

Installing another printer under another name in an attempt to fix whatever I'd mis-set didn't work either.

Is there some command-line hocus-pocus that I don't know about, which could be the problem?

Short of nuking my hard drive and going back to using Windows XP, what can I do to fix this problem?

Actually, I just issued the lsmod command in a terminal window (lsmod with no argument) and here's what I got:

lp 11016 0

I checked all connections. They seem to be seated OK. The paralell cable I'm using is 30 feet long (to go around the perimeter of a room) but it worked just fine with the Windows 98 machine I'd previously had conencted to it.

As I said, sometimes the machine printed normally, sometimes I got garbage. It was a roll of the dice.

Have you known the parallel port on a machine to go bad? I've never encountered one ever since my first 8088 back in the late 80's, but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

But that point's moot. Now every time I try to print something, I get no output at all, and an "error" message in the job viewer in the control center. And I'm pretty sure that's because I mis-adjusted something, I know not what, and I don't know how to put things right again.

I would start over again and forget the KDE printer control stuff. Remove it from the KDE printer screens. Open a browser, navigate to the CUPS screen (http://localhost:631), if the printer is still there delete it, then "Add Printer" and start again. As it is a parallel printer ensure you choose LPT#1 for the device.

I assume as it was partially working that you have enabled the parallel service. You can check if that is so:

type "ls -al /etc/rc.d/rc.parallel" . You should get the following and there must be "x"'s in those permissions....

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1148 2006-09-28 20:41 /etc/rc.d/rc.parallel*

Logged

"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll

To add to Larry's post, the CUPS printing system (to which the KDE printer control GUI is but a front-end) keeps error messages in /var/log/cups/error_log. If there was a communications error of any sort involving printing, the error message should be in /var/log/cups/error_log. Open the log file with any text editor and see what error messages are there. Feel free to post them here so we can further help you.

I would suggest setting the log level for CUPS to debug for now. To do that, open a web browser and type localhost:631 in the address bar. Once you see the CUPS web GUI home page, click on the "Manage Server" button. When the Server Administration page appears, click on the "Edit Configuration File" button. Now find the stanza in the file that looks like this:

Change the word "info" to "debug" (without quotes), then click on the "Save Changes" button. If you are prompted for a user name (you most likely will be), then enter root for the user name and the root account password. Once the changes have been made, the CUPS service will restart automagically.

Attempt to print a page with the log level set to debug. Post the relevant portion of the error_log here.

Have you known the parallel port on a machine to go bad? I've never encountered one ever since my first 8088 back in the late 80's, but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

Yes. In a number of cases, the loading induced by a long parallel cable can be enough to cause the chip to overheat and fail. If you've been using a 30 foot cable for a while, I would suspect that the chip has been running too hot for a while and may now have decided to die. I've seen that happen several times on laptops driving long parallel cables.

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But that point's moot. Now every time I try to print something, I get no output at all, and an "error" message in the job viewer in the control center. And I'm pretty sure that's because I mis-adjusted something, I know not what, and I don't know how to put things right again.

Can you try some hardware diagnostics on the machine? From the errors you are seeing, I would be worried about a hardware failure.

Have you known the parallel port on a machine to go bad? I've never encountered one ever since my first 8088 back in the late 80's, but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

Yes. In a number of cases, the loading induced by a long parallel cable can be enough to cause the chip to overheat and fail. If you've been using a 30 foot cable for a while, I would suspect that the chip has been running too hot for a while and may now have decided to die. I've seen that happen several times on laptops driving long parallel cables.

No one ever told me about this. My previous machine worked just fine with the long paralell cable (a PIII running first WIN98SE, then Ubuntu, then Debian).

But that point's moot. Now every time I try to print something, I get no output at all, and an "error" message in the job viewer in the control center. And I'm pretty sure that's because I mis-adjusted something, I know not what, and I don't know how to put things right again.

Can you try some hardware diagnostics on the machine? From the errors you are seeing, I would be worried about a hardware failure.

paul.

What diagnostics are available to me under VL? If my parallel port is toasted, because of the cable or because of something else, is there a PCI card I can use to drive the printer? (I understand that Laserjet 4's can also run from Ethernet, though that takes extra hardware). I really don't want to replace the whole motherboard. I may as well just junk the computer.

Also, I noticed that when I tried to make a test print from the CUPS GUI, I got a message: "Permission denied". Obviously I need to reset a permission. How do I do that?

I just had a thought. My old PIII had a nice, beefy 350-watt power supply. Most reeady-made PC's like Dells have fairly wimpy power supplies (150 watts or something equally absurd in my Optiplex). Dollars to doughnuts that's part of the problem.